


You Can Sit Beside Me (When The World Comes Down)

by fizzyblogic (phizzle)



Category: All-American Rejects
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-08-01
Updated: 2007-08-01
Packaged: 2017-10-07 20:29:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/68947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phizzle/pseuds/fizzyblogic





	You Can Sit Beside Me (When The World Comes Down)

He'll never tell Tyson this, but Nick sometimes only wears a shirt because of that moment when they're kissing and Tyson pulls it up over Nick's head and the kiss breaks. Nick likes that moment; he gets to stop, just for a second, and _look_ at Tyson.

It is always, always worth it. Tyson's pupils are dilated every time, his breathing is hard, his hands are fumbling with material and he's looking at Nick like a starving man would look at a huge ice cream sundae with real whipped cream, chocolate sauce and sprinkles. Just for a moment, Nick feels like he's the most delicious item on an ice cream bar's menu and Tyson is going to eat him with a spoon and savour every second, and as stupid as he always feels after thinking that, when the kiss crashes in again and Tyson's mouth seems determined to devour him, he can't help but forgive himself the lameness of his metaphors. He's fairly sure Tyson would completely agree if he ever _were_ to tell him, but Nick is far, far too embarrassed by the sheer dorkiness of it all to say the words out loud.

He has no reason to wear a shirt, except this. It's warm enough in Georgia, though they're up in the mountains; it's _July_, after all. There's nobody but him and Ty, locked away in their cabin creating bastard children in the form of sound and words. He cooks with all the windows open so the scent of the trees can get in, and Tyson reads out myspace comments, clicking away on his Sidekick.

"Ask them about the new Harry Potter book," Nick says, licking his spoon. One of the best parts of baking is nearly always licking the spoon after spreading the icing. He makes a mean chocolate cupcake.

Tyson eyes him. "Why don't you _read_ the new Harry Potter book? There's a town, I'm sure they'd have book stores."

Nick snorts. "Dude, I just wanna know if he dies or has sex with that chick."

"Which one, the redhead or the blonde?"

Nick flicks at him with the tea towel. "The blonde one's a dude, asshole."

"Oh right, I keep forgetting." Sometimes, Tyson only says things to wind him up, and he can always tell because of the stupid grin it always comes with. So Nick just grabs him, intent to wrestle.

Tyson wriggles too fast for him, and they end up pressed against the counter. Tyson's breathing hard, and this, Nick thinks as he waits for four measured beats, _this_ is why he bothered to wear a shirt this morning. The hover, as the quietness steals in right before they move, when the whole world contracts to just this, their breathing, the thump of Tyson's pulse against Nick's hip where his wrist is resting, the way Tyson's moistening his lips just a little bit, and fuck, those few moments before the kiss always drive Nick crazy. He thinks Tyson knows this, thinks that could be why he's started drawing it out lately, like he wants to just _watch_ Nick go crazy from being so fucking close to his skin but not getting the contact just yet. And it's delicious, just enough, just _enough_, when Tyson finally closes the gap and kisses him, hard.

Not that Nick couldn't always just close the fucking gap himself, it's just that he likes that delicious wait, the pause before the fall. Out here, in the middle of nowhere in the woods in the mountains, somehow he notices the _spaces_ more. The moments before a kiss, the breaking as shirts are discarded, the loss of skin contact in the hunt for the lube, those few seconds of perfect silence before Tyson comes, the breaths in and the pause between heartbeats. They stay up most nights, but once or twice he's just passed out before midnight and woken up in the morning when the air feels different, like it's waiting for something.

It's as if _down there_ is separate from _up here_. Down there in the real world, everything is the same and constantly moving, like some fairground ride you can't step off of because the ground's moving too fast. Up here, it's like they're in their own little bubble, cut off from everyone and everything, and it feels like they're cut off from _time_, almost. Like the rest of the world is frozen as they sit up here, writing song after song that makes Nick tingle down to his fingertips, curling up on the couch and watching the huge pile of movies they brought with them, exploring and re-learning the shapes and patterns and contours of each other's bodies in every room of the cabin. Nick just shuts his eyes, some days, and breathes in and thinks, _Time's stopped and it's just us two_, and he never thinks about when they have to leave. He just breathes in, eyes closed, heart pumping, and breathes out again.

In the mornings, Tyson makes breakfast and they sit out on the porch that wraps around the cabin, listening to the woods and talking, sometimes about the movies, sometimes about nothing in particular, sometimes about how they miss the other guys, sometimes about the songs they're writing. Tyson is in the middle of a sentence, one morning, when he goes silent and puts a hand out to shush Nick; he's looking off into the woods, so Nick looks too, and he sees stick-thin legs and curious eyes between the trees.

"Hey," Tyson murmurs, surely too quiet for the doe to hear. "You comin' to say hello?"

Nick looks at Tyson, whose eyes are soft as he keeps as quiet and still as possible, and his heart does that little contract-flip-expand-y thing it does sometimes.

"Look at that," Tyson whispers to him, and Nick looks. "Isn't that amazing?" The doe moves quietly away from them until they can't see her for trees. "Dude, you don't get _that_ anywhere else. We're having breakfast with a fucking _deer_."

Nick can't think of a single word to say, so he just smiles, because he was anyway.

Tyson looks at him after a couple of minutes of the comfortable sort of silence, and Nick counts out the spaces before he starts to speak. He sees the seconds stretch and join, like objects connected by cobwebs. "It's," Tyson starts. He pauses, gazing. Nick just gazes back. "You look so peaceful." Tyson's voice is quiet, full to the brim with something Nick can't quite put his finger on – affection, contentment, _love_. Nick smiles and shuffles over to lean his head against Tyson's shoulder.

"It's pretty peaceful here," he replies, hearing the warmth in his own voice. "I like it."

Tyson kisses his hair. "Yeah, me too. Kinda quiet, but – yeah."

"You're here," is all Nick says, but it's answer enough. Tyson nods, head still turned to look at him, and Nick shifts again so he can see his eyes.

"You're here too," Tyson murmurs, and in the spaces before he leans in, Nick closes his eyes, breathes deep, and hears the distant sound of birdsong.


End file.
